Tibet's self-immolation toll has reached 53

Tibetans (L) walk next to a police car on a street in Chengdu in southwest China's Sichuan province on Jan. 27, 2012.

Yet another person in Tibet has died in a self-immolation protest against China. This time, the victim is a 41-year-old Tibetan writer named Gudrub. Witnesses say that he shouted slogans calling for Tibetan freedom before setting himself on fire at a local marketplace, Radio Free Asia reported.

“He was shouting slogans while he burned, and he collapsed in less than a minute. The Chinese police took him away, but he may already have died,” a source told RFA.

Chinese authorities have struggled to stop the self-immolations and other protests against China. On Monday, Chinese courts sentenced four Tibetans to prison, claiming that the suspects aided a self-immolation protest or leaked news of protests to outside contacts, RFA reported.

Chinese media have refrained from reporting on China's crackdowns on protesters and on Tibetan self-immolation protests, the New York Times reported.